16 Stories...

Thursday 10th of February was the official opening for the Theatre in the college and I am very glad to say I was a part of the performance which marked the opening that night.
It consisted of eight dancers and eight actors which each told their own story throughout the piece, the story of how we got to where we are today and who helped us get there.  I really enjoyed this whole experience and collaberating with the actors was amazing, we learnt a lot over the 16 days it was created in and I am quite sad it's over now.  The piece was very emotional on the night and it created such a great atmosphere both for the performers and the audience, although it was an emotional night we all had so much fun performing.  It was something new for both the actors and the dancers, just shows you anything is possible...

21st Century Choreography

Back in December we had our 21st Century choreography assessment.  My piece was called 'Interpret This' as it was all about interpretation of images whether they be visual images or mental images.  It was based on how people view these images and interpret them in a completely different way from each other, so the idea was same image, different interpretation.  On the day i felt very pleased with my dancers performance and the only thing i thought could have made a difference at the time was if my dancers had been given some sort of interaction with one another or even an emotion, i felt this could have uplifted the piece and made it more interesting but this is something i will take into account on my next choreographic work.  We got the results for this on the 20th January, and i was very pleased with my result and i know exactly what i have to work on.
After weeks of rehearsals and creating a 5-7 minute piece, which was assessed before the Christmas break we were required to do a presentation on our choreography as evidence of the process and what we learnt throughout the experience of creating our own choreographic work.
My presentation was delivered on Monday the 7th of February, I felt like it went really well and that i was unusually organised and prepared.  I still think i could be a more confident speaker but the presentation itself included everything I thought was relevant and all the negative and positive things I will take from the experience itself such as the use of tasks and learning to be more organised and time efficient.  Overall the 21st century choreography was a great learning curve for me and i am looking forward to starting rehearsals for my IDP now :)

Showtime...

On Monday 31st of January we performed the first night of our 'First Footing Show' in the new theatre, which was really exciting.  Makes such a huge difference having the theatre here in the college and it's a great space to work in.
We performed a piece which was choreographed by Lisi Perry during the week we spent with her here in the college which was not an easy week! It was very intense and physical making us all very sore and tired but we pushed through and by the end of the week we had a great piece called 'Interpretation'  which was double cast.  I loved the whole process of creating this piece it made me realise how important it was to create a certain energy by performing everything as it should be everytime and enjoying doing so.
Anyway we performed this piece along with our Jazz piece which was really energetic and exciting and the night went down very well.  It was a great show :)

We were supposed to perform Monday to Thursday but unfortunately Thursdays show was cancelled due to safety regulations within the theatre, we were all very dissapointed but completely understand why it couldn't go ahead.

Teaching assessment week

Monday 24th January was the beginning of our teaching assessment week.  I did a workshop with a primary one class at Ferryhill Primary School based on the rep from 'My Hero', which is a piece that will be featured in the BA tour this year.
I was really excited about teaching the class and I had never taught such a young age group before so it was an entirely new experience for me.  The class were really well behaved and I enjoyed teaching them although I did make a lot of mistakes for example I was so scared that I would lose control of the class I kept them quite confined and I wasnt sure that they were fully understanding what we were doing most of the time so i demonstrated aswell as explaining but possibly spent too much time trying to explain rather than just doing it and letting them explore movement for themselves.  I also planned to number movements from the sequence to get them thinking and counting whilst moving but as  I thought I was running out of time I started to rush and ended up finishing the class too early.
I was very dissapointed with the way it all turned out but the only thing I can do now is think of this as a positive learning experience in which I will think about all the things I could have done better and hopefully get some more experience in order for me to improve my teaching skills and gain more confidence in what I am doing.

Scottish Dance Theatre

On Tuesday 26th October, we had a workshop with two members from Scottish Dance Theatre, James and selene.  We learnt part of their rep. then developed it further by adapting the movement and adding in bits of our own.  We also did some improvisation which is not my strongest point! aha but it was a really good learning process and we got to use our voices too which was a different experience.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  We also went to a interactive workshop the following day which showed us snippets of the work that they are working on at the moment, what they were about and information on the lighting and music.  Although we didn't get to see the full duration of the pieces I really liked the ideas behind them, especially NQR which was choreographed and danced by a disabled dancer as well as abled dancers...it was amazing and the duets looked beautiful, very inspirational and left me very open-minded as to what a dancer is...

Alvin Ailey...

On Wednesday 20th October we attended the Festival Theatre to watch a performance by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.  The performance was amazing and very inspirational and i particularly enjoyed the new works which was based on Judith Jamieson's story and her relationship to Alvin Ailey, was almost like a tribute to him.  I thought it was really interesting and  moving, felt myself getting quite emotional lol.  They also did their Rep. which was as fantastic as ever.  Loved it! :) 

New York, New York! :D

Last week a group of the BA students booked our flights to New York.  This is a huge oppertunity for us as dancers to develop our skills and a great experience and insight into the danceworld in America. We are planning to take dance classes, see lots of shows and various other things that may inspire us.  All that is left to do now is the fundraising! how exciting! :)